


monophobia

by zombeesknees



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 00:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombeesknees/pseuds/zombeesknees
Summary: What does a 900-year-old Time Lord fear the most? | A DW drabble written many moons ago on LJ.





	monophobia

“What are you afraid of, Doctor?”

She asks him this as they walk out of the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, hand-in-hand as always, the sun blindingly bright on the eyes after the hour spent in the darkened _Phobia and Superstition_ exhibit. 

He doesn’t know what to tell her. The truth? That he was terrified of losing her, of failing her, of letting her die on some faraway planet under a green sun in order to save a million lives? That the thought of her stranded on some street corner in ancient Greece, alone and adrift because he had sacrificed himself to preserve Earth’s timeline, made his palms sweat? That knowing she would have to leave him some day, no matter the circumstances, made his hearts shatter within his chest and brought that heavy, persistent ache of true loneliness—the emptiness of the War, the emptiness she’d driven away—back to the surface? 

Or does he give her a half-truth, tell her he was always afraid of making the wrong choices, without also telling her how she factored into that nightmare? Or does he just brush the question away with a goofy, sloppy smile and rush off, pulling her behind him, shouting that they needed ice cream? 

But no, he doesn’t do that. Because Rose is looking at him and he doesn’t need to glance at her out of the corner of his eye; he knows she’s looking at him with that indefinable expression she sometimes has, a mixture of curiosity and fear and awe and hesitancy, and he knows that right now she must be thinking, _He’s still such a mystery to me, an aloof and distant alien, not a bloke, and I shouldn’t forget that. Should I really be traveling with him? Why can’t he open up to me more, why does he always brush things off with a joke or smile?_

He stops, turns to look her full in the face, meets her innocent nineteen-year-old eyes with his old, old eyes, and he takes her other, soft hand in his larger, callused one. 

“I’m afraid that you’ll get tired of this daft old face and want to go home. That you’ll decide traveling with me isn’t worth all of the danger and monsters and tears and that you’ll ask me to take you back to London and Jackie. But right now, Rose Tyler,” his hands tighten around hers, and he finds a smile, “I’m not afraid of anything. Because it’s a beautiful June day, and we’re in one of the most beautiful cities on the planet, and I’m with you."

Her eyes are bright in the sunlight, and he wonders if those are tears he sees. But she’s smiling, and squeezes his hands before letting them go and reaching up to pull him into a hug. 

It’s a full-bodied hug, one that goes on for almost ever, and he spends most of it breathing in the smell of her strawberry conditioner. 

“You know what I’m afraid of, Doctor?” Rose murmurs in his ear, her breath tickling his skin. “I’m afraid that you’ll wake up one day and tell me you don’t want me around any more. That you’re bored with me.”

“That will never happen,” he says, picking her up for a moment, spinning her, making her giggle. “I could never get bored with you. I’ll always want you.”

They spent the next hour at a café across the street, eating huge fudge sundaes and laughing. Because it was a beautiful day in June, and they were together, and there was nothing to be afraid of.


End file.
